"I have chosen reading to be the venue by which these children will find a voice. I believe that if they are able to connect with the characters in books, where authors have written about the feelings of these characters and [if they] make these strong connections, they will get hope."

Complex educational circumstances demand thoughtful and inventive responses. In this classroom, you will see a highly transient student population that comes to school with limited literacy experiences, and, that, in many cases, harbors a distrust of reading in general. Helping these students enjoy literature and become independent literary envisionment builders means first overcoming that distrust by showing them ways literature can enrich their lives. Only then can they begin to learn to approach literature in increasingly thoughtful ways.

This video offers you a look at how Bileni Teklu often focuses classroom instruction on developing her students' enjoyment of reading and appreciation for literature. Beginning each lesson with a brief 10- to 15-minute mini-lesson, Ms. Teklu devotes most of her instructional time (nearly an hour) to student independent reading. During that hour, Ms. Teklu conducts individual conferences with students, monitoring their progress and encouraging them to talk about the value reading has for them. In addition, she encourages them to articulate the specific connections they discover between literature and their own lives or the world around them.

For resources that can help you use this clip for teacher professional development, preservice education, administrative and English/language arts content meetings, parent conferences, and back-to-school events, visit our Support Materials page. There you will find PDF files of our library guide, classroom lesson plan, student activity sheets, and other Teacher Tools.